christianityfandomcom-20200214-history
Noah
Noah (from the Hebrew meaning Rest or Comfort), son of Lamech, was the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs and father of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Noah is probably best known for the Genesis Flood which came in his time. His story is contained in the book of Genesis, chapters 5 through 9. Life Introduction We meet Noah in Genesis 5:32 at the age of 500 with three children: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In Chapter 6 we find out that the earth is digressing into sin and this grieves the heart of God who feels grieved that he even made men. So he decides to wipe all life from the face of the earth, except Noah finds favor with God. Flood and Noah's Ark We read that Noah was righteous, blameless, and walked with God. God told Noah about the impending flood that was going to happen soon and gives him dimensions of an ark that Noah is to build and put two of every animal. A hundred years later, when Noah is 600, the flood comes. The springs of the deep burst open and it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. Noah, his wife and his three sons and their wives all went aboard the ark to wade out the flood. One year later the waters recede and Noah walks out of the ark, builds and altar to God and makes a sacrifice and God makes his covenant with Noah that he will never again flood the world. Noah's Drunkenness While the Flood and Noah's Ark are the best-known elements of the story of Noah, he is also mentioned as the "first husbandman" when he began to till the soil to make a vineyard, as well as in connection with the somewhat mysterious episode of his drunkenness and the subsequent Curse of Canaan, Ham's son. Epilogue Noah died 350 years after the Flood, at the age of 950 according to Genesis 9:28-29. God's covenant with Noah After the flood, Noah built an altar to God (the first altar mentioned in the Bible) and made an offering. "And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.'" Genesis 8:21-22 (ESV) Then God made a covenant: Noah and his descendants would henceforth be free to eat meat ("Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything"), and the animals would fear man; and in return, man would be forbidden to eat "flesh with its life, that is, its blood." And God forbade murder, and gave a commandment: "Be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it." And as a sign of His covenant, He set the rainbow in the sky, "the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth." Genesis 9:1-17 (ESV) See also * Noah's Ark Category:Old Testament people